necessity of substance in each; in the relation of causality A, as the embodiment of substance, determines and produces B. Substance in this conception has dirempted itself into two shapes, each of which is itself substantial. Two points require emphasis here.
The ordinary conception of causality is dogmatic and rests on unexamined assumptions. It begins by assuming separate things, finds that they follow one another in a determinate order, but instead of thinking out what is involved in this determinate order gives it a name, causality, and passes to some easier problem. The main difficulties in causality arise from the assumption that cause and effect are purely separate facts, and that the relation between them, viz. invariable sequence, is external to their nature. Naturally, if we grant that in full truth A and B are merely self-identical, any essential relation between them is unintelligible. Hume made this assumption, and in consequence reduced causality to mere sequence together with the expectation engendered by the experience of that sequence in the past. Kant saw that if causality is to be intelligible as an objective relation, the assumption of the absolute independence and self-sufficiency of its factors must be given up; and in his view the relation is constitutive of the terms.[1] Causality, the type of objective order, is an a priori principle for Kant, without which the unity of the subject and hence knowledge in general is impossible. In Kant’s theory, however, there is a gap between this transcendental principle and the concrete matter of sense by which it is filled; and so far as the empirical sequence of events is concerned, Kant stands very close to Hume’s position, not discerning the imperative need for the revision of the hard and fast boundaries between perceived objects. Hegel brings out the identity of cause and effect in a way which Kant failed to do. Kant’s view is confined in effect to the necessity of the objective coherence of events in time and space; Hegel realizes that in order to think this coherence we must be prepared to take the identity of the factors seriously, and not be content with its mere
- ↑ For a brief account of Kant’s view of causality v. Adamson, On the Philosophy of Kant, pp. 57-66; cf. Macmillan, The Crowning Phase of the Critical Philosophy, pp. 127-34, where stress is laid on the ambiguous position of inner sense in Kant’s view.
